The idea of the Perennial Philosophy of Aldous Huxley leads one to the idea that God is too big for any one religion. How is it that sometimes people outgrow their religion of childhood? James Fowler, among others, has mapped out a model of spiritual development. Osho says that a person cannot enter into a spiritual life until he/she rebels against childish religious beliefs. Notes On A Spiritual Life intends to explore deeper understandings of an authentic spiritual life.

Spirituality quotes

Sunday, January 7, 2018

Path of ego or path of spirit?

Our egos, to maintain control of our lives, like to make things complicated when our choices are simple.

The basic question is "What will make me happy?" The ego has one answer and the spirit another. Which do we want to choose? Which will we follow?

It reads in A Course In Miracles that perception's basic law is: "You will rejoice at what you see because you see it to rejoice. And while you think that suffering and sin will bring you joy, so long will they be there for you to see. Nothing is harmful or beneficent apart from what you wish. It is your wish that makes it what it is in its effects on you." T-23.IV.2:1-4

Some people play the victim for they think this will bring them sympathy and comfort. The worse their pain and trauma the better for the more sympathy and comfort they are entitled to. Negative attention seeking is something we learned to do as children from parents who were abusive and neglectful. This negative attention seeking sets us off on a life trajectory of hell. Hopefully, at some point we ask ourselves, "Is this really what I want?"

In asking the question, we begin to get a glimmer of understanding that we are not really victims. We are children of God and as such we have inherent dignity and worth. As such children of God while our bodies can be assaulted and abused our spirit never can be because it is part of the precious divinity of the universe.

As Flip Wilson used to say in his Geraldine routine, "What you see is what you get." We can choose what we see. That is our power to live a good, and happy life.